A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs HAProxy comparison

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A10 Networks Thunder ADC

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

A10 Networks Thunder ADC and HAProxy compete in the load balancing and traffic management category. A10 Networks holds the upper hand due to its robust security features and integrated licensing compared to HAProxy's open-source and customizable approach lacking inbuilt security.

Features: A10 Networks Thunder ADC offers an all-inclusive licensing model, advanced traffic management, and optional security features through third-party firewalls. It provides DDoS protection and IPv6 support. HAProxy provides efficient load balancing, protocol-level traffic handling, and advanced LB algorithms, focusing on customization through scripting.

Room for Improvement: A10 Networks faces challenges with limited third-party integrations and potential support delays due to overseas centers. HAProxy needs improved logging, user-friendly documentation, and robust security features, with a more modular design and native cluster support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: A10 Networks boasts strong support, although some users note response delays. On-premises deployment is common and support services receive positive ratings. HAProxy enables flexible deployment across environments but relies heavily on community support, with paid support available for critical needs.

Pricing and ROI: A10 Networks is cost-effective compared to F5, offering an ROI through simplified configuration and reduced operational costs. HAProxy's open-source nature results in affordability, with expenses focused on optional paid support or advanced features, providing a cost-effective solution for performant load balancing.

To learn more, read our detailed A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. HAProxy Report (Updated: April 2025).

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. HAProxy

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

10th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

HAProxy

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Service Mesh (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Thunder ADC is 5.0%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HAProxy is 12.5%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

SatishBabu

Vice President at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Known for its load balancing capabilities, the WAF features need to be improved

The solution's initial setup process was easy. For the installation, it takes around five minutes. One person can do the maintenance since it is not required much. So, it's a one-time solution, and its maintenance is fine. The number of people required for maintenance depends on the clients as well. One or two engineers are fine to serve around a hundred clients. If you have a number of devices, more people are needed for their maintenance because of the patching it requires during regular operations. Only for the maintenance, one engineer's fine. However, for regular operations, we need multiple people.

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Mehdi El Filahi

Co-Founder at tenekit

Useful for for small and quick load-balancing tasks

What I like best about the product is its simplicity and speed. When you need to set up a load balancer quickly, HAProxy offers options like sticky sessions and round-robin. It's also fast to configure, including adding SSL for security. While it may have fewer options than other solutions like F5, HAProxy gets the job done for basic load-balancing tasks. The reliability features of HAProxy were particularly useful in a scenario where I needed to test load balancing between two Tomcats. Since these domains were inaccessible, I set up a third Docker with HAProxy, which had access to the Tomcat domains. I then configured HAProxy to handle the load balancing. This setup allowed the client to interact with HAProxy. The solution's integration with other elements is easy.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The SLB and GSLB load balancing are the most valuable features. They meet our need to do server-side load balancing and global site load balancing so we can distribute traffic, not only intra-data center, but inter-data center."

"The Deterministic CGNAT feature is valuable for us."

"For the past two and a half years, we have not had a need to open a tech support ticket. It is really stable. In the past, our experience with tech support was that they were extremely helpful."

"We do have the option of creating virtual chassis, so that gives it a bit more security. If we find an application which is not going to play well in the main pool, we can easily create a virtual chassis and have that application in that virtual chassis. With the virtual chassis we can also create system partitions and have a test system for test applications, and have the others elsewhere."

"It's a very friendly solution, easy to configure and it's very flexible."

"It helps with the efficiency of application deployments and data security."

"Feature-wise, A10 Networks Thunder ADC is better for troubleshooting...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."

"A10 Networks Thunder ADC is an easy-to-use and flexible solution."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC pros

"The feature that I have found the most valuable is that it works for my use case of application load balancing. I'm using it for PeerSense, and it's easy enough for PeerSense."

"Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind."

"It is a crucial tool in ensuring smooth service provision without any interruptions."

"I am also able to make configuration changes during the day, in production, with no worries of problems and/or downtime occurring."

"It is scalable."

"It reduced the load on our main load balancers."

"It improves our scalability and responsiveness services to meet our demanding customer requirements."

"I estimate that this product has saved our company hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in possible downtime from previous load balancers. We make a lot of our money from online sales, so it is critical to have 99.9% uptime."

More HAProxy pros

Cons

"I would like them to provide learning tips and a community forum where users can share ideas. They need more detailed support articles on the A10 website."

"When it comes to support, there is always room for improvement. First call resolution is not always there for urgent issues. The first call resolution is something that could be improved upon."

"A10 Networks Thunder ADC could improve on the Application Delivery Controller. it's not a fully-fledged web application firewall solution. For example, application data and support need to improve."

"There is room for improvement in the GUI. I just migrated from the 2.7 software train to the 4.1, and there are still people on 2.7. The latter is a very old GUI if you compare it to F5. It's not as easy to use and a lot of things are missing. They've made a lot of improvements in the 4.1 step, but compared to the ease of use of F5, it's still quite difficult. For people who haven't got a lot of experience, the GUI can be quite challenging."

"The costs can be quite high."

"There is room for improvement in the upgrading process. Sometimes we have to contact A10 for verification of some stuff."

"The solution should add automation features in the next release."

"Traffic flow issues are very difficult, as there's no means for us to analyze the traffic coming in or out of the appliance without technical support."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC cons

"While troubleshooting, we are having some difficulties. There are no issues when it is running; it is stable and very good; however, if there is a troubleshooting issue or an incident occurs, we will have issues because this is open-source."

"HAProxy could do with some good combination integrations."

"Improving the documentation with multiple examples and scenarios would be beneficial. Most users encounter similar situations, so having a variety of scenarios readily available on the tool's website would be helpful. For instance, if I were part of the HAProxy team, I'd create a webpage with different scenarios and provide files for each scenario. This way, users wouldn't have to start from scratch every time."

"The GUI should be more responsive and show the detailed output of logs."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing model. It could be cheaper."

"The logging functionality could use improvement, as it is a little cryptic."

"I would like to see better search handling, and a user interface, with a complete functional graphical unit"

"We've changed solutions as it doesn't fit with our current needs."

More HAProxy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You get a lot more for your dollar with A10."

"For the hardware and license, we paid $35,000 per box, which was a one-time cost. Then, for the Gold Support on the two boxes, we pay $9400 annually."

"One of the main reasons for switching away from Cisco was the licensing model. A10 gives you global server load balancing for free, while Cisco charged a significant licensing fee for that."

"It is $7000 per unit for the support annually."

"The pricing is a third of the price of the F5 competition."

"There were budgetary constraints that keep us from investing in the single pane of glass traffic management feature. We saw a demo of this feature about a year to a year and a half ago."

"We just pay for support in addition to our licensing."

"The price of the maintenance support is too expensive."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC pricing and cost advice

"The product is open source."

"HAProxy is an open-source solution."

"If you don't have expertise then go with the licensed version. Otherwise, open-source is the best solution."

"The tool is open-source."

"The licensing fee for the solution is $690 per unit annually."

"I think that the pricing is very fair, I would definitely recommend buying the Enterprise license."

"We are using HAProxy as an open-source."

"HAProxy is a free open-source solution."

More HAProxy pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

14%

University

Government

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

I would recommend A10 Networks due that it delivers high performance in a small form factor to reduce OPEX with significantly lower power usage, rack space, and cooling requirements compared to oth...

Do you recommend A10 Networks Thunder ADC?

I do recommend A10 Networks Thunder ADC. It's very user-friendly, easy to configure, and flexible. It is a very useful solution - especially now, when a lot of employees are working remotely. I hav...

What do you like most about A10 Networks Thunder ADC?

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is an easy-to-use and flexible solution.

Do you recommend HAProxy?

I do recommend HAProxy for more simple applications or for companies with a low budget, since HAProxy is a free, open-source product. HAProxy is also a good choice for someone looking for a stable ...

What do you like most about HAProxy?

The solution is effective in managing our traffic.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HAProxy?

HAProxy is an open-source solution.

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

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Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 1% of the time

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Product Reports

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Download A10 Networks Thunder ADC product report

Download HAProxy product report

Also Known As

Thunder ADC, AX Series

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE

Overview

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is a dynamic application delivery controller and advanced load balancer. Thunder ADC is a value-added solution provided by A10 Networks specializing in robust, trusted, scalable application services for cloud, hybrid, edge cloud, and on-premise environments focused on improving business processes and keeping infrastructures safe. The solution consistently provides server availability, improves content delivery, and protects at-risk applications. A10 Networks Thunder ADC easily controls hybrid and multi-cloud deployments using a Polynimbus strategy to minimize difficulties and costs for IT processes, facilitating overall improved business results.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is effective for small to medium businesses (SMBs) to large enterprises. Service providers and cloud operators are all using A10 Network ADC to manage their large and fast-growing group of business-critical applications.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC supplies L4-7 load balancing with numerous layers of security using DNS and web app firewalls, comprehensive support for advanced encryption, single sign-on (SSO) authentication, and high-performance Perfect Forward Secrecy and Error Correction Code (PFS/ECC). Thunder ADC is designed upon A10 Networks Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS®) platform to provide consistent, efficient application performance and trusted security for any environment.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC Benefits

Consistently accessible: A10 Networks Thunder ADC employs numerous load balancing protocols to evenly distribute workloads to all servers and works to ensure constant application functionality. User requests are monitored to ensure loads are directed to the appropriate server so that there is always a proper response delivery to content. This process ensures the applications are consistently available.
Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB): To ensure business processes are fully optimized at all times, A10 Networks Thunder ADC employs a dynamic Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) process to augment server load balancing capabilities throughout global data centers for high availability and improved user experience and application tolerance.
Fast content delivery: A10 Networks Thunder ADC conquers the general WAN latencies, chatty policies, and redundant software programs to ensure quick and responsive service. Employees receive a fast, excellent end-user experience while the organization's business leaders get exceeded SLA mandates and increased productivity with teams working remotely and a step up on the competition.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC Features

Detailed Analytics: When deployed with A10 Networks Harmony Controller, Thunder ADC delivers a large selection of detailed aggregate and per-request reports in real time. The reports include popular URLs, error and health indicators, latencies, and end-to-end response times. The data is further dissected to deliver per-app reporting, availability alerts, and performance.
API Coverage: Thunder ADC utilizes A10 Networks REST-based aXAPIs to structure all features with 100 percent API coverage. The resulting interface is then used to seamlessly integrate custom or third-party management solutions, such as VMware or other SDN platforms, OpenStack, Microsoft SCVMM, or other cloud orchestration systems. There are also software plug-ins available for private clouds utilizing VMware’s vRealize Orchestrator.
Comprehensive Management Controls: Thunder ADC is fully supported by A10 Networks Harmony Controller and can be deployed in software or as a software-as-a-service (SaaS). This controller functions as a native management platform that organizes and distributes application-centric service protocols and configuration data to numerous Thunder appliances and device cluster infrastructures throughout numerous multi-cloud environments. Users can instantly identify, audit and track every appliance using critical operational metrics, such as CPU, disk usage, device partitions, and end users. The A10 Networks Harmony Controller will also complete configuration backups and restore operations, and will schedule regular software upgrades.

A10 Networks

HAProxy is considered by many in the industry to be one of the fastest and most popular and trusted software load balancer products in the marketplace today. Organizations are able to immediately deploy HAProxy solutions to enable websites and applications to optimize performance, security, and observability. HAProxy solutions are available to scale to any environment.

HAProxy is an open-source product and has a robust, active, reliable community. The solutions are continually tested and improved on by the community. HAProxy offers a dynamic design to support the most modern architectures, microservices, and deployment environments (appliances, containers, virtual, and cloud).

HAProxy utilizes a cloud-native protocol, which makes it a complete solution for cloud services such as Red Hat OpenShift, OVH, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and more. It also can be used as the reference load balancer in OpenStack.

HAProxy Products

HAProxy One: This is a next-gen end-to-end application delivery platform created to secure and streamline modern application architectures. It offers a complete suite of solutions, such as application delivery software, turnkey, and appliance services observed and administered through a central control plane. The product supplies application acceleration, CDN, DDoS, bot management, WAF capabilities, and load balancing.

HAProxy Fusion Control Plane: This product enables organizations to streamline workflows, arrange traffic routing and security protocols, enhance the speed of delivery, and scale out of the organization’s applications. HAProxy Fusion Control Plane offers an intuitive user interface to observe and control the complete product lineup and API for administering numerous fleets of HAProxy Enterprise servers, either in the cloud or on premises.

HAProxy Edge: This product offering is an application delivery network (ADN) that provides a broad array of turnkey application services with amazing scale and complete visibility. Services include application and content acceleration, advanced security, and load balancing.

HAProxy ALOHA Hardware or Virtual Load Balancer: This product is a virtual load balancer or plug-and-play hardware constructed upon HAProxy Enterprise that is designed to support proxying at Layer 4 and Layer 7. It has a user-friendly GUI, simple deployment, and no limit on backend servers, making it a complete product for organizations desiring a reliable system to provide high-end load distribution for critical services.

HAProxy Enterprise Kubernetes Ingress Controller: This product is designed to facilitate smooth traffic flow into a Kubernetes cluster. It is able to automatically discover anomalies and changes in an organization's Kubernetes infrastructure and provide precise distribution of traffic to healthy pods, with no downtime caused by poor pod health or scaling changes. The product comes with an embedded WAF to optimize the security of an organization’s applications running in Kubernetes.

HAProxy Enterprise: This product is the enterprise-class edition of HAProxy offering a dynamic and sturdy code base with next-generation features, an enterprise suite of add-ons, professional services, and trusted support.
- Cluster-wide tracking and rate limiting
- Advanced DDoS and bot management
- Web application firewall
- Reliable expert support
- High performance modules
- Device detection and geolocation
- Real-time dashboard

Reviews from Real Users

“Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind.” - Nathanel S., Platform Architect at SES

“I use HAProxy for individuals who can not buy low balancers. I built NFV in a box and send individuals a pathway into an HAProxy VM. The setup was not difficult; it usually takes a day to complete for a VPC. When it comes to pricing, HAProxy is free.” - Nasir O., Network & Cloud Architect at Koala Compute Inc.

Sample Customers

123inkt.nl, Bentley University, Box, Brainshark, Buienradar, Capgemini, CGN/LSN & NAT64, Chengdu Telecom, Club One, Code Ready, CRC Health Group, Cyso, Deutsche Telekom, Earth Class Mail, Excite, FFF Enterprises, Florence County, Framingham State University, From30

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. HAProxy